


Sick of wearing a mask, sick of hiding my face

by infamousxunderdog



Category: Motionless in White (Band)
Genre: Friendship, Funny, Things that would never happen in real life, Vinny just being Vinny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25378015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infamousxunderdog/pseuds/infamousxunderdog
Summary: !Please don't take this too serious!The plot is absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic, but I wanted to write something where Vinny has a bigger role than in other fanfictions I've read so far.I got the idea ater I wanted to buy the face masks but they were sold out.No smut, no shipping stuff.
Kudos: 3





	Sick of wearing a mask, sick of hiding my face

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction in a very long time and I'll try to finish this one this time. It's also my first fanfiction I've ever posted on this website and it's very different from the website where I posted my other stories. So uh ... yeah, please be kind.
> 
> This first chapter isn't very spectacular but I needed a start. Vinny will appear more in the following chapters, I promise. I hope you'll like it anyways.

“Why did you order a bunch of black face masks?” My mum looked at me in unbelief. “It’s not 2020 anymore.”  
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t prevent myself from chuckling a bit. Since she wouldn’t understand why I started making MIW themed face masks I just said “It’s for cosplay”, grabbed my package and ran upstairs into my room.

I got the idea for taking commissions on MIW themed masks during the corona pandemic in 2020, when I actually wanted to buy the official MIW mask that was sold but couldn’t get one because they weren’t in stock anymore. Back then I already planned on buying blank black face masks and paint them, and I wanted to make a few more for my friends as well. I had to drop that plan since it was impossible to get a decent number of masks for a decent price. Crazy times back then.

I sat down at my bed, opening the package and started counting the masks. 50. Perfect. Bit more than I needed, but they’d sell sooner or later. Hopefully. And if not – well, maybe 3020 will hold another pandemic for us, who knows. And I could use them for cosplay eventually anyways.

I reached out on my nightstand where I placed the list with commissions. I decided to try not to paint one design too often on the masks, I was afraid enough already to get in trouble for selling unofficial merchandise. But I tried not to worry too much about that, since I didn’t have a website or something where I sold that. I did that via Instagram, where I posted a picture in my story of myself wearing my hand-painted mask and someone asked if I could paint them one, too. That’s how it started. There weren’t many commissions coming in, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t do that to earn money, I just did this for fun and because this way I always had something to do to keep my creativity alive since I didn’t have much time for bigger art projects because of my apprenticeship.

\---

About two and a half weeks later the first commissions were done and ready to be shipped. I was kinda nervous as I came back from our local post station. I was just hoping that there wouldn’t be any problems with shipping or anything, and if the people liked my designs. Some had seen their finished masks already, and so far, I only earned positive feedback for that. But some people wanted the finished product to be a surprise so I had to practice patience and wait until they arrived.

Luckily none of the masks got lost on their way, even though one was going to America. Which really surprised me back then. I didn’t know that anyone so far away would be interested in my work. But even they had their mask, a bit later than the others that’s been shipped within Europe and took only about a week. But better later than never, I guess.  
I got so much positive feedback from everyone, and so many people even posted their masks on their Instagram story and tagged me, I was overwhelmed with the positive feedback. I did not know simple face masks could make someone that happy. (Okay I mean I was happy as fuck as well when I painted my own but … I did not know other people could appreciate my work that much.)

I didn’t take long until even more commissions where coming in. People asking for different designs, even not MIW related ones. That was just crazy. Within a bit over a month after shipping my first 12 masks I had 23 new commissions. Some people would think that my overwhelmed reaction would be a bit of exaggeration but I really was not prepared for people liking my work that much.

\---

This whole customized mask thing was going on for about two and a half months now and I am really happy with how things are going, even though I don’t get any requests I had to buy my second pack of masks because I ran out of blank ones. And for one who didn’t think that their ‘business’ would interest more people than their friends this was quite an archivement. But little did I know even bigger archivements where about to come. I was happy with my band related designs, I was happy that people liked my stuff and I was happy that I haven’t had an art block yet that ruined any of the commissions. Fingers crossed that things would go on like this.

\---

I just woke up. It was Saturday and rainy outside so I didn’t have any motivation to get out of bed or even move yet. I yawned and stretched my arms before I turned around and reached out for my phone that I put on my nightstand. I unplugged the charger so I could turn around again, my back facing my room. It was just much comfier that way. I unlocked my phone and opened Instagram, since that was the app I used the most recently my fingers seem to automatically find the app icon. But I don’t mind.

The little arrow on the top right corner of my screen showed a white 5 highlighted with a red cirle. I opened my DM slide, wondering from who the messages could be, since I took all new orders and requests that came in during the week yesterday already.

_lena sent a story_

_Sascha sent a story_

_Mona🖤🌙 sent a story_

_️🌈 2 new messages_

was what I saw, together with one new request. Huh, okay? As I opened the first chat just to see I was sent a story by Vinny Mauro. I was about to text back something like ‘I follow him already, I see his stories ;D’ until I noticed something in this story that looked familiar. Wait. I tapped the screen and as soon as the story got opened I zoomed in. Wait. These were my masks. The masks that I had made about two weeks ago. How-

_Wish these were actually sold at concerts :D_

was the caption Vinny added to this story. I stared at my phone, still trying to realize what I just saw. My mask. My custom made mask in Vinny’s Story. I’m not exaggerating it took me several minutes to really get what I saw there. To get this straight, someone apparently finally got their order, posted a picture of the masks in their story and tagged me as well as all the MIW members. That at least solved the riddle about the request. Okay but… Vinny saw this story, and even took the time to repost it and to write a caption. I was more than blessed. And as soon as all these informations slowly trickled into my brain I couldn’t hide my smile anymore. Even thought it was a very confused smile.  
As soon as I opened the other messages I saw that all of them sent me the same story. Vinny who reposted my masks. And I still couldn’t believe it.

Feli’s messages, that I opened last after answering to the request, thanking them for the tag and for buying my stuff, really made me laugh, because she simply added a random amount of capital letters – HFJHEWH – after the story. And, filled with adrenaline how I was, I simply answered with an amount of capital letters.

_DFHDJBDS HJH I KNOW I-  
Okay I’m calm  
No I’m not  
I-_

That’s the exact wording of my messages back to her. Which perfectly reflected the inside of my head and my thoughts in this exact moment.  
Next I responded to the messages of Mona and my sister, Lena. To Mona I simply wrote

_I have no words for this_

and Lena got several crying emojis as well as a text that didn’t say anything but how speechless I was.

I sat up in my bed, closed Instagram and switched to WhatsApp. I needed to discuss this. Seriously. Because a part of me – a very big part, I had to admit that - really considered taking Vinny’s story seriously. I somehow wanted to answer to this story but I knew that if I’d do that now my message wouldn’t make much sense and would clearly be a text from an overwhelmed, excited fangirl. Which would automatically make it very cringy and would lead me to regretting my whole existence. So that wasn’t an option. For now, at least. If I really wanted this to work, I needed a better plan. And yes, the really fangirly part of my brain thought this could lead to a short conversation with Vinny. Maybe. I hoped so. Though the responsible part of my brain knew that Vinny was joking and things like maybe making masks for the band members would never come true. But hey, hope is the last to die.

\---

“Okay but- Is it weird that I somehow want to answer Vinny to this story? I mean”, I chuckled, grabbed a pillow and squeezed it between my palms. “If they want to sell them officially, I absolutely wouldn’t mind.” My voice had taken an ironic undertone, but I was serious about this. But I’d never admit that.

“Yes sure!”, my sister said, smiling in excitement. “Just imagine if you could make like two or 3 designs for official merch. That would be so cool!”

I couldn’t help but smile even wider. I loved how my sister supported me and my weird ideas even though she wasn’t as much into Motionless in White as I was. But that couldn’t stop her from fangirling about them with me. I loved it.

“Maybe I’ll answer to his story. I don’t know. I mean he probably won’t see it anyways.” I shrugged.

“Well that shouldn’t stop you! I mean if he doesn’t read it then you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about since he’ll never know about this message. But if he reads it – perfect! I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen, huh?”

“He could hate me”, I answered jokingly, but to be honest that was the main reason why I didn’t really dare to even try to get in contact with Vinny about the masks. There was still a risk that this could come off cringy or whatever, even worse naïve! I mean what if he really was just kidding, which was very likely, and then me, stupid as I am, answers   
something that would insist that I took this whole shit more serious than it actually was. I winced just from the thought of it. Uh. God dammit, why do I have to overthink about everything so much? Horrible.

“Oh come on, that’s absurd. I mean, in case he saw your message wouldn’t that show how much you appreciate their interest in your work? I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t hate you, I actually think he’d be happy about it, who knows? And maybe they’ll really sell two or three of your designs. Even if it’s just one. You’ll never know if you won’t try. The only thing that I for sure know you’ll regret is not trying it. And if you don’t shoot you shot today within the next – when did he post this story?”, she interrupted herself. I opened Instagram and checked the story. “7 hours ago.” She nodded.

“If you don’t shoot your shot within the next 17 hours the chance is over.”

She had a point. It would probably be much weirder if I send him a message after the story disappeared. I don’t know. I sighted and rested my chin on my knees. “I’ll think about it, I still have 17 hours left.” My sister laughed.

\---

Turns out my sister wasn’t the only one who saw the situation like that. Later that day, as I was texting with another friend of mine who was at least as obsessed with MIW as I was, told me almost exactly the same.

“But still, if I answered to his story the message could get lost in all his requests.” I didn’t know how many requests he actually had but I imagined there were a lot. “I just thought I maybe could screenshot the story or something and answer with a story? Maybe that would improve the chances that he’ll see it?”  
“Go for it.”, he responded. “But don’t write a whole ass novel okay?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Because that probably would’ve happened. I tend to elaborate the things I wanted to say too much just because I was afraid people could misunderstood something.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ll try not to”, I replied and laughed. “Maybe just something like ‘I could work on something ;D’ or anything like that.”

“Sounds good”, Sascha answered, and I closed WhatsApp to go back to Instagram and open, for the probably 100th time this day, Vinnys story. I took a screenshot, added it to my story and added my text. But it took me a while until I actually added to my story. I must’ve sat there for about 5 minutes, my thumb hovering over the little icon in the bottom left corner that said ‘Your story’ before I eventually did it. For some reason I was nervous. For fucks sake, I should calm down and most important I shouldn’t take everything too seriously. But that’s just how I was.

Now I couldn’t do anything but wait. The next 24 hours would be the longest 24 hours of my life. I needed something to distract myself. I switched to Spotify and put one of my playlists on shuffle. Then I got up from my bed and grabbed the pack of masks and my list where I wrote down all of the requests. While waiting I could at least be a bit productive. I grabbed my sketchbook and my pencil and started working on the new commissions.


End file.
